A growing number of Americans are questioning whether even moderate drinking is safe, according to a new Gallup poll. Over half of U.S. adults (53%) now say that moderate alcohol use is
bad for health — nearly double the 28% who felt that way in 2015.
The shift is especially strong among young adults, two-thirds of whom believe that “one or two drinks a day” can be harmful. Older adults are less convinced, but their skepticism has also grown sharply: about half now say moderate drinking is unhealthy, compared with just 20% in 2015.
This changing perception comes as fewer Americans report drinking at all. Only 54% say they currently consume alcohol — the lowest figure Gallup has recorded in over 30 years, and near historic lows since polling began in 1939. The decline is most pronounced among women and young adults, reversing earlier trends when young people were the most likely to drink.
For decades, moderate drinking — especially red wine — was often portrayed as beneficial for heart health, based on flawed studies that didn’t prove cause and effect. But in recent years, research has shown that alcohol can increase the risk of cancer and other health problems. Several countries have tightened their guidelines, and earlier this year outgoing U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for warning labels linking alcohol to cancer.
Currently, federal dietary guidelines advise men to limit themselves to two drinks or fewer per day, and women to one or fewer. New recommendations, to be released later this year under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., could change those limits.
Gallup’s director of social research, Lydia Saad, says older Americans may be slower to shift their views because they’ve seen decades of changing health advice. Younger adults, she notes, have grown up in a culture more focused on alcohol’s risks than its supposed benefits. Photo by Matt Pourney, Wikimedia commons.
